Light Our Desert Pathway (Day Eight)

Popular Victorian hymnwriter Frances Ridley Havergal carried out a special annual New Years' tradition. Each year for many years she would write a poem for the occasion and distribute it to her friends and associates. They varied in length, but some of the longer ones (such as the one I wrote about last year) have had a more extended life as hymns.

This short Christmas text, a prayer by Havergal, conveys a different mood from the ones I have been presenting, but I think it's important to remember that not everyone is always in the mood for shepherds and angels and tidings of great joy at this time of year.

Mists and clouds and shadows
Veil the wintry hour
But the sun dispels them
With its rising pow'r.

Mists and clouds and shadows
Often dim our day,
But a Christmas glory
Shines upon our way.

May the Child of Christmas
Counsellor and Friend
Light our desert pathway
Ever, to the end.

Frances Ridley Havergal, date unknown; alt.
Tune: NORTH COATES (6.5.6.5.)
Timothy R. Matthews, 1862

Timothy Matthews has another more well-known tune sometimes sung around this time of year. North Coates was the village in Lincolnshire where he served as rector for many years.

One of my favorite Christmas ornaments on our tree when I was growing up was a small lantern, which came to mind when thinking about this hymn. The illustration above was as close as I could come to it.

Solace, Light and Grace

I have been somewhat remiss in not coming up with Sunday themes this summer for the Sundays after Pentecost. It's several months until Advent and the beginning of the church year, when we always have an appropriate theme for a hymn (unless there's a hymnic birthday to mark). Last summer I rotated between four different ones on Sundays:

• hymns of social justice
• communion hymns
• hymns of the Holy Spirit
• gospel songs

but I haven't come up wth four new ones yet. Let's try this one to start.

There's a certain subset of hymns that are often (not always) used as opening hymns, the first hymn of the service. Services across many denominations often open with a hymn of praise to God. This hymn may specifically mention morning, traditionally the time of Sunday worship (also not always). Sometimes there are specific references to the congregation's coming together for worship, with perhaps a prayer for blessing or for receiving the gifts of Word and sacrament.

I think these traditions come partly from a section of the Catholic mass, the Gloria, which exists in several different textual versions and countless musical settings. Some churches use both an opening hymn of praise and a Gloria, but why not? Plenty of room for praise.

Here's one I remember, as a little Lutheran boy, that was always the opening hymn when we sang it. Other denominations use it now but the text at least is of Lutheran origin (Composer Neander, while German, was a Calvinist, and wrote many texts as well as tunes). In the original German it began Thut mir auf die schöne Pforte. Online translators can't provide a literal English version beyond "beautiful gate," but Catherine Winkworth knew how to phrase it.

Open now thy gates of beauty,
Zion, let me enter there,
Where my soul in joyful duty
Waits for God, who answers prayer.
Oh, how blessèd is this place,
Filled with solace, light and grace!

Gracious God, I come before thee,
Come thou also unto me;
Where we find thee and adore thee,
There a heav’n on earth must be.
To my heart, oh, enter thou,
Let it be thy temple now!

Here thy praise is gladly chanted,
Here thy seed is duly sown;
Let my soul, where it is planted,
Bring forth precious sheaves alone,
So that all I find may be
Fruitful unto life in me.

Thou my faith increase and quicken,
Let me keep thy gift divine,
Howsoe’er temptations thicken;
May thy Word still o’er me shine
As my guiding star through life,
As my comfort in all strife.

Speak, O God, and I will hear thee,
Let thy will be done indeed;
May I undisturbed draw near thee
While thou dost thy people feed.
Here of life the fountain flows,
Here is balm for all our woes.

Benjamin Schmolck, 1730
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.
Tune: UNSER HERRSCHER (8.7.8.7.7.7.)
Joachim Neander, 1680

Filled with solace, light and grace! I didn't even know what solace was but it had to be a good thing. This was one of my first "favorite hymns" and it's a good one for children because the first two lines of the melody are repeated, so it's easy to remember. In The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), which we used, this tune is matched with five different texts, but this is the one I remember singing. Also, it's the first hymn in that book, #1. Nowadays I like a little more melodic variety, which is probably why it's moved down my list, but I do still like the tune very much, and it goes well with some other texts too.

As we've seen, when I'm writing a new entry I often come across some odd connection to something that I've recently written about. Timothy Matthews, the composer of the tune MARGARET for Emily Elliott's Thou didst leave thy throne, also wrote a tune that can be used for this text called VILLAGE VESPERS. It's an interesting curiosity (note that his tune's first two lines also repeat) but I'm not surprised it never caught on. Neander's seventeenth-century tune UNSER HERRSCHER (sometimes called NEANDER) may well be sung for another three hundred years.

What are some opening hymns that are used regularly in your churches? I have several in mind, so we won't run out, and maybe we'll get to some of yours.

One Year Ago: Jessie Seymour Irvine

Emily E.S. Elliott

Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott (July 22, 1836 - August 3, 1897), another daughter of the clergy, came from a hymn-loving family of the Evangelical branch of the Church of England. Her aunt was the more well-known hymnwriter Charlotte Elliott, and her uncle, Henry Venn Elliott, published Psalms and Hymns for Public, Private, and Social Worship (1835), which included some texts by him and by Charlotte, as well as by his wife, Julia Ann Elliott.

Emily's earliest hymns were written for the choir of St. Mark's Church in Brighton, where her father was the rector. Later, she was for some years the editor of a magazine, The Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor, where some of her hymns were first published. They were later collected into three volumes, totalling one hundred forty-one by one account.

This hymn still appears in some hymnals, generally in the Christmas section, though it traces all of Jesus's life.

Thou didst leave thy throne and thy royal crown,
When thou camest to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem's home was there found no room
For thy holy nativity.

Refrain:
O come to my heart, dear Jesus,
there is room in my heart for thee.

Heaven's arches rang when the angels sang,
Proclaiming thy high degree;
But of lowly birth didst thou come to earth,
And in great humility.
Refrain

The foxes found rest, and the birds their nest
In the shade of the forest tree;
But thy couch was the sod, O thou Child of God,
In the deserts of Galilee.
Refrain

Thou camest, O Lord, with the living word
That should set thy people free;
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn,
They bore thee to Calvary.
Refrain

When the heavens shall ring, and the angels sing,
At thy coming to victory,
Let thy voice call me home, saying "Yet there is room,
There is room at my side for thee."
And my heart will rejoice, dear Jesus,
When thou comest and callest for me.

Emily E.S. Elliott, 1864; alt.
Tune: MARGARET (Irregular with refrain)
Timothy R. Matthews, 1876

Elliott wrote the first tune used for this hymn, as she did for some of her others, and it appeared in some nineteenth-century hymnals, but MARGARET has probably been consistently used for the last hundred years. Composer Timothy Matthews wrote other tunes, but this one has been the longest-lived, just as the text has been for Emily Elliott.


One Year Ago: Saint Mary Magdalene